Theories of Authorship - Essay Example

Theoretical objections Theories hip Tasks Theories hip Introduction Over the last20 years, in the film industry serious writing on film has from time operated surprising on the opposite principle. This is opposite from the principle that states that theory of inescapable. It further states that theory far from being an intruder it always dictates its presence and assumes it position. The spectator is an individual who is not merely a passive receptacle in watching a film. This is in assumption that the spectator is getting entertained in the action of watching the film. The spectator is engaged in succession of interpretations an in this case it is depended on the entire background beliefs. Without these beliefs, the film he or she is watching will not make sense. Through what a spectator sees physically, one ascribes motives to characters; judges certain actions as good and others as bad; decides that one film is realistic and another is not; distinguishes the happy from the unhappy ending, and so on. The simple act of viewing, therefore, involves theories of representation, of human nature, of morality, of the nature of reality and of the conditions of human happiness. Auteurism as a Theory The attempt to confront the contradictions of auteurism within cinema aligned an important section of theoretical work on film with a more thoroughgoing critique of the romantic conception of authorship which depended on the notion of a unified and free creative subject. The work of John McTiernan seems to indicate a pull between the recognition of the auteur as system of consistencies and the film Die Hard as a tension between the director’s personality and his material. Auteurism was at its most productive in its contradictions, and the systematic and rigorous attempt to confront them make a shift out of auterism as a critical policy towards work on a theory of authorship. As much as it is believed that the subsequent history of film theory followed necessarily from the radical intuitions of auteurism, it is possible that the foundations of a number of developments in auteurism theory were already present. This is not in theory but believed to be found in the work of those auteur critics who were more concerned with the productivity of ‘miss en scene than with the simple identification of the auteur’s thematic preoccupation; that the present concern with film as language or film as discourse marks a return to a more rigorous concern to account for film as pleasure. It is a quite widespread though a vague idea that film criticism and theory as we know it today, and also film-making, owe almost everything to french film criticism in the period since 1945. In the past, authorship provided a doctrine, a politique, though hardly a ‘theory’. The concept of authorship and its essential implications are argued by Irving Pichel, an American director, that ‘Creation must be the work of one person’. At this stage, authorship was a relatively simple concept, essentially the idea that the film auteur was to be considered as fully an artist as any of the most recognized painters, poets or novelists. Eric observed their critics and concluded that the director is the final authority and the sole negotiator of a films meaning. The directors then required one consistency; that they should have a strong personality and should be able to project their convictions authentically. John Hess an American critic has his suggestion that the films tend to talk much of the same kinds of stories. However, the most important determinant of an auteur was not affiliated much with the film director’s ability to express his personality. This is a much believed concept by many and they believe it is his desire that he combines with his/ her ability to express a specific world view. A film director referred to as an auteur who expresses an optimistic image about the potentialities within a corrupt society. By reaching out emotionally and spiritually to other human beings and to a Supreme Being God, one could transcend the isolation imposed on one by a corrupt world’. Moreover, Hess links his analysis overtly with the social political history of the post war France. Hess talking about the tendency describes it as a significant romantic concept based on art. It also involves an artist whom one finds expressed in another place in the beginning years. For instance, Malraux argues that everyone has the knowledge that a specific artist’s main duty is not the one that is bet rooted to tradition. This includes even the most complete as well as finished work. It rather emanates from his or her personal work the one which he has stripped and does not wholly own it although he or she uses it to improve his style. In relation to the auteur ideas about this planet as recorded in a significant articles that dates back in the 1960s by an author by the name Fereydoun, he states that the nature of ideas consistency that come out is displayed by different films. But it was generally realized that a number of the auteurs’ were typically talking about on and the same things or issues. The "constants" of their particular universes belonged to everybody: solitude, violence, the absurdity of existence, sin, redemption, love, and others. Each epoch has its own themes, which act as a benchmark against which individuals, whether artists or not, act out their lives’. But if these themes were more or less constant across a variety of auteurs, it becomes hard to separate the original ones from the rest. Mise En Scene The uniqueness of the auteur is based not in the subject matter he selects, but in the skill he adopts, that is, the mise en scene, through which everything on the screen is articulated. One isnt a writer for having chosen to state certain things but having stated them in a certain way that he is able to express himself. What matters in a film is the desire for order, composition, harmony of those involved in bringing out the theme of the film, the movements within the frame, the capturing of a unique moment or a certain look; in short, the intellectual operation which has put an initial emotion and a general idea to work. Mise en scene is a method that is employed by a director to express the thought and establish the specific quality of his work. The role of the critic thus becomes vast: to realize behind the images the exact manner of the auteur and out of this idea be able to clarify the meaning of the work in question. Mise en scene thus establishes itself as an essential concept in authorship and in later criticism influenced by the viewers. There is clear continuity that it is not so much the choice of subject which characterizes an auteur but as how he chooses to treat his subject. Originally, mise en scene is a word drawn from theatre arts, neutral in intention, meaning actually placing on the stage or staging, that is, the way in which a play-text becomes a staged play. Cinema has such a strong position that even the most insignificant investigative story can be transformed to a captivating work of art. Given the fact that in Hollywood the director usually had limited control on the cast, the subject matter in a film, the quality of the communication among the actors, height of creativity, evidences of personal expression and statement had to be found in the mise en scene, the visual part of the story, the image dynamism, the causes and speed at which editing is done. John Caughie, through what he called the ‘radical dislocation’ in the development of film theory, stated that auteurism affected a shift in the way films conceived and grasped within film criticism. The personality of the director, and the consistency within his films, were to be sought and discovered through analyzing and giving special attention to different and specific films. It was in establishing what the film said, rather than reasons for liking or not liking it, that authorship disapproval legalized itself as an approach. Mise en scene provided the means by which the auteur expressed his thought, and thus also the means by which the auteur is critically discovered and analyzed. Looking at different angles, the concept of changing a specific historical formalism that is important is probably the most essential right contribution of auteurism. This is in relation to the development of a detailed as well as valued film criticism. The whole issue also involves engaging with mechanisms of visual discourse that are directed in a specific way. It also includes freeing it from liberal commitments and liberal models that are prepared to validate different films based on the films themes alone. One would have to say that the greatest film-makers are over fifty, but it is important to practice the cinema of ones own age. Youth is in a hurry, it is impatient, and it is bursting with all sorts of solid ideas. Upcoming filmmakers tend to shoot films in a rush, movies in which the characters are always on the move chasing some imaginary ghosts in a bid to get it over and done with, in which shots jostle each other to get on screen before The End, films that contain their ideas. Later on, this invaluable ideas and thoughts will pave way to one great, overriding idea which will lead the critics to complain about a promising film-maker who has grown old. Directors should keep away from the assistant’s mentality which can be summed up as: I am finally going to make my first film; 1 am terrified of falling on my face; I have allowed a script and actors to be imposed on me, but there is one thing I wont give in on, and that is time; I demand fourteen weeks of shooting, thirteen of them in the studio, because if I can use time and film as much as 1 want, 1 will be able, if not to make a good film, at least to prove that I can make a film. Enunciation Enunciation can be described as the manner in which things are uttered or rather expressed. This can be either in speech, writing as well as film making. The Films in the 1970s had their crucial emphasis is based on the way different forms of enunciation normally positioned the spectator in a host of ways. For instance, in a mode of enunciation the source of the concept is made evident. The film basically talks about an aspect of I and you thus a sender and a receiver or a presenter and his audience. In a second mode of articulation the source of enunciation is hidden behind a apparent objective mode of appearance. Here we see things in terms of him, her, and it; there is no discernible emanating point for what appears on the screen. Somehow, there is no clear enunciation. Post-Structuralism Post-Structuralism calls into question the notion of a unified, creative subject. It also shatters the notion of complete and controlling authorial presence but rather insists that an "author" is subject to uncomfortable conditional forces that transcend individual intention, choice, and control. It goes on to argue that we cannot consider a theory of authorship without taking into account theories of language, ideology, and the unconscious critics and psychoanalysts just to mention a few. Roland Barthes, 1968: "It is language that communicates, not the author; writing is about reaching that point where only language acts, performs, and not me. The existence of auteurs is in convenient fictions and is mostly held aloof by the grace of spectators. It also studies the textual system and suppresses the question of its human source. We have moved then from viewing the artist as an expressive individual with a singular vision to the concept of subject positions within film texts. This move entails an attempt to replace an impressionistic humanism (the belief in creative individuals who control discourse and meaning) with a scientific notion of an impersonal, non-individual subject. If auteurism of the author comes as a privilege, the text is celebrated by post-structuralism. Reconstructed / Born Again Auteurism There is also a theory of reconceived or rather “reconstructed” Auteurism that states that independent individuals do make their own films since texts do not construct themselves. Theoretical objections did not explain the author rather sidelined him. The auteur becomes a selling point and is considered for commercial purposes while authorship regains its academic respectability. Well, in a film, the auteur marks the presence of time and creativity. This position comprises of a possible creativity of the spectators response. Dudley Andrew, 1993 stated that since Nietzsche, we have been tempted to play with the authorship body to our liking, for readers exist and the text exists, but the author eventually remains as an effect of both. Andrew Sarris, 1968 stated that cinema is the art of an attitude, with the style of a gesture that is simple. It is not so much what as how. There is some aspect of reality rendered mechanically by the camera. The how is what the French critics choose somewhat mystically as mise-en-scène. The whole idea of a meaningful style is that it joins the what and the how into a personal statement. One important function of films was to provoke reflection upon the nature of cinema itself. Realism and Cinema In film studies, realism is a central concept to the styles, movements and sensitivities of film. Cinema conversations always end up on how ‘realistic’ a movie or film seemed. What views term as ‘real’ is never real but a depiction of that which is real. Therefore, realism is not a cohesive concept and refers to various aspects of cinema in different contexts theoretically and critically. As (Ellis, 1992 p.8) states, ‘there is no realism, but there are realisms’. In realism, the director tries to touch the surface of life as directly as possible. This enables the viewers to see the film as a reflection of certainty. Bibliography Allen, R.C. & Gomery, D. 2014, Film History: Theory and Practice, New York: McGraw Hill. Bordwell, D. & Thompson, K, 2013, Film Art: an Introduction. France: Degrémont. Caughie, J (ed.) (2011), Theories of Authorship, London: Routledge. Gibbs, J. (2002) Mise-En-Scene: Film Style and Interpretation, London: Wallflower Press. Lapsley, R. & Westlake, M. (2013), Film Theory: An Introduction, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mast, Cohen & Braudy (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company . Read More

It is a quite widespread though a vague idea that film criticism and theory as we know it today, and also film-making, owe almost everything to french film criticism in the period since 1945. In the past, authorship provided a doctrine, a politique, though hardly a ‘theory’. The concept of authorship and its essential implications are argued by Irving Pichel, an American director, that ‘Creation must be the work of one person’. At this stage, authorship was a relatively simple concept, essentially the idea that the film auteur was to be considered as fully an artist as any of the most recognized painters, poets or novelists.

Eric observed their critics and concluded that the director is the final authority and the sole negotiator of a films meaning. The directors then required one consistency; that they should have a strong personality and should be able to project their convictions authentically. John Hess an American critic has his suggestion that the films tend to talk much of the same kinds of stories. However, the most important determinant of an auteur was not affiliated much with the film director’s ability to express his personality.

This is a much believed concept by many and they believe it is his desire that he combines with his/ her ability to express a specific world view. A film director referred to as an auteur who expresses an optimistic image about the potentialities within a corrupt society. By reaching out emotionally and spiritually to other human beings and to a Supreme Being God, one could transcend the isolation imposed on one by a corrupt world’. Moreover, Hess links his analysis overtly with the social political history of the post war France.

Hess talking about the tendency describes it as a significant romantic concept based on art. It also involves an artist whom one finds expressed in another place in the beginning years. For instance, Malraux argues that everyone has the knowledge that a specific artist’s main duty is not the one that is bet rooted to tradition. This includes even the most complete as well as finished work. It rather emanates from his or her personal work the one which he has stripped and does not wholly own it although he or she uses it to improve his style.

In relation to the auteur ideas about this planet as recorded in a significant articles that dates back in the 1960s by an author by the name Fereydoun, he states that the nature of ideas consistency that come out is displayed by different films. But it was generally realized that a number of the auteurs’ were typically talking about on and the same things or issues. The "constants" of their particular universes belonged to everybody: solitude, violence, the absurdity of existence, sin, redemption, love, and others.

Each epoch has its own themes, which act as a benchmark against which individuals, whether artists or not, act out their lives’. But if these themes were more or less constant across a variety of auteurs, it becomes hard to separate the original ones from the rest. Mise En Scene The uniqueness of the auteur is based not in the subject matter he selects, but in the skill he adopts, that is, the mise en scene, through which everything on the screen is articulated.

One isnt a writer for having chosen to state certain things but having stated them in a certain way that he is able to express himself. What matters in a film is the desire for order, composition, harmony of those involved in bringing out the theme of the film, the movements within the frame, the capturing of a unique moment or a certain look; in short, the intellectual operation which has put an initial emotion and a general idea to work. Mise en scene is a method that is employed by a director to express the thought and establish the specific quality of his work.

The role of the critic thus becomes vast: to realize behind the images the exact manner of the auteur and out of this idea be able to clarify the meaning of the work in question.

Read More